John: Guys are thinking they need to go to another country to find a good Christian woman with family values. You don't need to do that. Instead, be the man to influence the women around you. If they just worked on themselves, they would influence a woman. But a woman will not be influenced by a man; she'll take over and be the man because she's had to do that on her own anyway to survive. Beyond the perfect, we discover through our flaws. We complement each other better than perfect. We stay through every fault. We find all right, welcome back to the Better Than Perfect podcast, where every week we show you how two imperfect people helping each other equals one better than perfect relationship. We'll never be able to get through the intro without... grow, I think was the word you missed, helping each other grow.

Nicole: Oh, okay. Same, same, different. But I could tell you were really sweating while you were saying it. It's like there's so much around the intro because every time, it's just we can't have... will we get it this time? It kind of makes it fun. You never know. But you guys might have noticed a few new accessories. We got an award. So, you know how they say to reward yourself? Well, we awarded ourselves the best couple. You can't see it from there; it says best couple, courtesy of the CVS. You can buy it yourself; it won't be the same. And we got a neon sign. Hey, we're getting official. But we just need some Apple iTunes reviews, wink wink.

John: Yeah, so I think it is your week.

Nicole: Are we just going to go right in? I mean, unless you got something else. We watched a documentary last night, but it's just not worth talking about because we don't want to get off topic. It's controversial. It was on Hulu. It's about Tandre 8. Everything you would think it would be. But we won't go too into detail with that because we don't want to diminish our viewing because of it, thanks to YouTube or whatever kind of censoring happens today.

John: Yeah, we don't want to be censored. But today's episode topic, I was inspired by someone who commented on our Instagram. I forget which reel it was, but I responded back to him. I'll pull up the comment, and then we can just read what it is.

Nicole: Should I say what it is first?

John: Yeah, go ahead.

Nicole: The topic is Passport Bros. And if you don't know what Passport Bros are, because most women I'm sure have no idea, there are so many code words. This is a man term to the man lingo that they use to mean that you should not date Western women, AKA American women, and you should get your passport and go find a wife in a different country, AKA Passport Bros. So when this comment popped up and I responded back to it, it just kind of led to John and I having this really long conversation. We're on the same page about it, but it needs to be said because men don't even understand what Passport Bros really means and really entails. Everybody that you see online, all like the incel guys, are like, "Yeah, Passport Bros," like you just go get a non-Western woman or whatever. And they just hear this stuff and they regurgitate it. If they stopped and actually tried to plan out what this would entail, which we were talking about, that was our discussion. It does not end up the way that they actually think. No, they just go to Colombia and, you know, hook up with a hooker. They don't actually do that; they're just sitting here perpetuating from their pontificating on. Right, some of them do go to Colombia. I'm not saying they don't go at all. And there are so many schemes there to catch guys like this.

Nicole: That's getting picked up by a prostitute, and they don't even know it.

John: Oh, they know.

Nicole: Did you find the comment?

John: Okay, I found the comment. "All these videos should be talking about the elephant in the room. American women make the worst girlfriends, wives, and mothers on Earth. Majority are selfish, annoying, unhappy, anxious, overweight, and insufferable. Be one of their hundred dicks, soft guy. Date them zero effort, drizzle drizzle, recreational use only. When you're done playing around, go overseas and find a long-term partner who was raised by two parents with proper role modeling and secure emotional attachments. Otherwise, very good chance your expensive gamble on an emotionally damaged American woman has you in divorce court opposite a lying, cheating, vindictive American ex-wife slother who destroys your family for all the property and a monthly check that makes it impossible for you to start over. Now the kids are... Take a vacation overseas and ask anyone what they think of American women. You'll also be shocked how easy it is to date and fall in love with a woman who isn't ruined by a toxic culture to become overweight, overbearing, uncaring. The rest of the world doesn't hate men." And I do have to point out, though, because I did look at his profile. He's got a lot of followers, like 144k followers. Now, he's got some reels on his account, and all of them have exactly 50k views, so it's a little bit suspect. But in his bio, he does mention that all his followers came from viral uni videos during lockdown, deleted, don't ask, "Careful what you wish for." So I did, unfortunately, look to see what he was talking about. It's him standing in his underwear with his flag flying. You literally gave him way more credit than, like, just even bringing up his profile. I wouldn't even... Everything you just recited that he said, if I roll my eyes as hard as I want to, they'll never come back to the front of my face.

Nicole: So, yeah, I responded to that, yes, in the way of many things. But that's a lot to digest. Do you want to go ahead, or I can go ahead?

John: Well, okay. There are a few points I think that are worth saying. Some of what he said is somewhat accurate, in terms of we live in a culture where, unfortunately, a lot of women are given the wrong message about men, about how they should behave, all those things. That's why also part of the mission of this podcast is to help women.

Nicole: And what's the wrong message?

John: Because you're saying they're given the wrong message, but I think they haven't encountered a lot of real men, masculine men.

Nicole: I agree. It's weird because we were talking about this.

John: Last night, too, it's not like there's one source of the problem. It's because there's this constant war. Men are like, "Oh, women are like this," and they've got some valid points. A lot of women are not the most wife-worthy women that you would want to marry and be a mother to your child. But then women are like, "Oh, men are like this," and they've got some valid points because most men are not the kind of quality man that you would want to settle down with and feel like he could lead you. So, there are valid points on both sides, but there's this constant war, right? So, my point is that a lot of these valid points end up getting turned into slander instead of something that is constructive.

Nicole: Because, hey, we were talking about last night. I mean, I hate to use the terminology, but there's this term, it's a dumb term, there's a lot of dumb terms called "Hflation." Okay, and it's about this idea that specifically Western women have a higher perceived value of themselves because of all the, another word, "simp culture" of guys just giving them stuff and treating them like celebrities and liking all their photos and stuff like that. So, they have a higher esteem of themselves, and there's some truth to it, right? However, when you call it "flation," you lose all your credibility. Yeah, you lose all credibility. No women are listening to that. It's not helping you. You're just... Well, no one is because it's not presented in an educated, actually informative way, trying to help people understand.

John: Right. Anytime you, and like we were talking about, like when women say "mansplaining," right? Exactly the same sort of term, which, like, I understand what you're trying to convey even with men. But instead of actually explaining it the way that you should explain it, you use a term like that, and that's derogatory.

Nicole: Exactly. Well, and then it just makes you look immature. It makes you look like you're, you know, you're now angry when you're trying to discuss this, which makes you appear biased rather than being able to see both sides of the situation and explain one perspective in a way that's a matter of fact. Because if you use one of these terms, right now, you sound exactly like the people who use those terms often, which with guys with the whole "flation," that's men who hate women. And women with "mansplaining," it's usually women who are angry at men and are mad at men.

John: Right. So, yeah, it's like that whole comment that you just read is just littered with that stuff. Exactly. And it's almost like a copy. And like when I saw that comment, I'm like, "Where did you get this from? You got this from the source that all of these guys got this from." Believe me, I know because I was somewhat part of that community. Not that I was part of the community in the sense that I preached these things. I'm saying that I was in that, you were trying to preach the right things. So, I heard these dialogues, and like I said, in some variation, some parts of it are accurate, but it's like you didn't think for yourself. You just mentally copy and pasted this from someone told you this. And with a lot of this stuff, it's not even coming from firsthand experience or secondhand experience. It's some story because there's this story of this woman who divorced this guy and took all his money and the kids and all this stuff. And it's like, yeah, I know that that does happen, but most guys that are saying this are quoting statistics about this kind of stuff. They're just, it's just some urban legend of a thing because they don't cite an actual person. They don't cite an actual case. It's not someone they actually knew.

Nicole: Right. Or they say, "Oh, you know, it's just so vague." The thing is, too, that even in those situations, they assume that a woman left a man just because she was bored. That never happens, right? Unless they did not have any sort of actual meaningful relationship. A woman will never leave a man because she's bored. It's normally because she is tired of feeling unloved by the man that she's with. She's tried to fix it, often times in the wrong way, I will say that. Women, a lot of times, do not know how to fix the relationship and how to convert a man into the loving man that she wants. And then she finally reaches her point where she's like, "This is never going to change. I have to do something," and she leaves. It's never, "She's bored with her husband and wants a new one." That never happens. That is more likely to happen with a single woman or a woman that's dating, sure, rather than a married woman, especially if she has kids. Like, I'm not saying that every mother is perfect, but most women who have kids do not want their husband to not be in their kids' lives.

John: Right, yeah, because they understand what it would do to the child. Yeah, and of course, you can find some exceptional cases. I'm not saying it never ever happens, but when guys make comments like this, they're trying to make it sound like that's the majority. And again, like I said, some of the values that American values that women have are not great ones, but we talk about that on this podcast all the time. But the same thing with men, right? So, we're trying to set those values correctly, but stuff like that does not help. And you know, getting into really the meat of it, this idea that you could go somewhere else in the world where women are so much better, right? And all your problems will be solved. It's such a dumb one. Okay, because if you go to places like Colombia or Russia or wherever you can think of where women are docile and they respect men and they serve their men, their master, you know, that type of thing because that's what these guys are thinking they want, is a complicit woman that's just going to obey his every command. It is true that in some of those cultures, you will see that behavior, but in those cultures also, you will see extremely masculine men who, and not necessarily in a good way, but who are very demanding and dominant, aggressive. And so, in those cultures, because women are usually suppressed and they don't have any other option, they do obey those men. They do. Okay, now, if you go there and you're a weak, you know, we didn't talk about men in America, but if you're a weak wuss of a guy, which is the majority, right? And especially if you have to leave your own country to go and try to find a wife, so okay, and you go there and you meet a woman there, you think she's going to respect you? As soon as she figures out that you're a pushover, that you're not this guy, that you haven't been raised in that culture, yeah, you're not manly enough, she's going to run your ass over. Because she's worse than an American woman in the sense that she will sever. She can, like, yeah, that's what they don't understand. Is that women in those situations will do whatever they need to do because it's about survival. When you're with an aggressive man who represses you, it's about survival. So, when they are with a man that they can walk all over and

John: Do whatever they want. She's going to take the lead because she was around a manly man, an aggressive man. It's not masculine in the correct way, but it has rubbed off on her.

Nicole: She just can't use it towards him. But what makes you think she won't use it towards you? A lot of these men talk about countries where women don't speak English. It's never about the UK, France, Spain, or those countries where they might be more inclined to speak English. It's about countries where they're used to these hyper-aggressive sorts of men that don't usually speak a lot of English.

John: Exactly. They want to find women that seem more reserved and won't talk as much because they don't even know English.

Nicole: What they don't realize is that in all of these countries, a lot of these women have been repressed and want to come to America so that they're not repressed. They will marry you to come to America. You're so afraid of a woman taking half of your stuff in a divorce, and you're not afraid that a foreign woman who marries you to come to America will take half of your stuff in a divorce?

John: Oh yeah. And you think they're not good at playing the game. They know the game. They have to do what they have to do to survive, and a lot of things over in different countries are legal that aren't legal here.

Nicole: Maybe you go over there, and you get duped. The woman treats you like a king, acts like she respects you, or maybe she even just thinks that you're tough until she figures out not. Then you come back to America with her. She waits the nine months or whatever the seasoning period is to get the green card. First of all, one thing that happens is she might have just been duping you from the beginning. So then her true colors come out. Or second, she gets exposed to American culture. It's dumb to think that everyone in the world hasn't been exposed to this culture. They know about it. Let's say that she doesn't know about it, or now she has friends, and they're these "trashy" American women. So, it's just short-sighted thinking.

John: It's dumb. They need to watch 90 Day Fiancé. I know it's a TLC show, but that also happens. I'm not saying that if you went on a vacation and met a woman in a different country and you actually fell in love, that it would not work out. I'm talking about the men who are trying to take the easy way out by going to find a woman that has been repressed, who probably doesn't speak English very well.

Nicole: How are men logical if they're not thinking this through? You cannot subjugate or divert around female nature. In a lot of these countries, a huge percentage of women were forced to undergo clitoral circumcision to control women because they're afraid of women's sexual desire.

John: You have to actually learn how to really attract a woman and how to get her to follow your leadership because she wants to, not because you're making her or because the culture makes her. If you could get around that, then why in these cultures do they have to resort to this kind of violence against women?

Nicole: Are these men looking for love? This is an easy way to get a woman. Here comes this American man that wants her and will treat her better, and she's going to be like, "Yeah, okay, I'm getting on that boat, and I can come to America." But as a man, how would I know that this woman actually cares about me? Do they just not care about that? Why are you even getting married? So someone will do your laundry, so you can boss somebody around? You never know if this woman likes you for you or the opportunity you provide her.

John: If you think about things transactionally, then you're like, "Okay, well, I provide money, and she provides sex or domestic chores." You can't think of things transactionally.

Nicole: And about the clitoral mutilation thing, that cannot make sex pleasurable for a woman. So even if you were with a woman like that, and she is having sex with you, she's not going to be enjoying it. It will hurt her. Is that what you want? You just want a hole?

John: Somebody who believes in this, but what is it that they want? Like, are they actually looking for love, which I believe is the truth because no matter what men say, everybody's looking for love. For someone who loves them exactly, unconditionally, and shows them that and wants them, yeah?

Nicole: Right, and they think that they can get that by going this easy way because a woman will just throw herself at him because he's American. And you know, then whatever in their mind that they think is going to happen. But also, at the same time, it sounds like they just want these things, right? That aren't going to give them the love that they're actually looking for. And that's why you see a lot of people talk about passport bros, but how many passport bros do you actually know, right?

John: Exactly, very few.

Nicole: Yeah, very few. And like I said, the 90 Day Fiancé thing shows that you can even go through this and end up in the situation that we're talking about. Like finding some woman or some man in a different country and then getting married quickly just to lock them down. And then now you end up with somebody that potentially conned you, that you don't actually have a lot of things in common with, can barely communicate with. And so you don't have an actual connection or love relationship. Or like, yeah, maybe it would work out if you actually had the right intentions. But people who are sitting here saying, "Hey, let's be passport bros," they don't have good intentions. They wouldn't talk about it that way if they did.

John: Oh yeah. And I constantly tell guys that I'm coaching with dating coaching, I'm always like, "Look, do you want to have a girl let you fuck her, or do you want a girl to desire you, to want you?" Trying to keep it a little PG, but it's a really important question, right? Because some of the tactics and things that you could do... There's actually a really good book called "Why Women Have Sex" all guys should read that to understand that women have sex for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's to get revenge, sometimes it's just because they feel guilty, or sometimes they want something. So the question is, which of those reasons... You don't want the reasons that are not because she actually wants to have sex with you, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the... And so you have to really think about that as a guy because a lot of guys will say, "Oh no, it's just having..." No, there's a qualitative difference between having sex with a person who wants to have sex with you and someone who lets you. And you know what it feels like, and the "let you" part is not even worth it. It's not even worth it, you know what I'm saying?

Nicole: That's what's going to happen in a lot of these cases, especially when guys are trying to circumvent. Some guys try to circumvent this. They're like, "Okay, if I have a lot of money, if I have six-pack abs, I mean, maybe then you got more of the desire, but it's still not going to be what you think it is." But you can't circumvent this. You have to actually learn how to be a man that women are attracted to. And going to another country, having a lot of money, all of these things, they're not going to solve that problem. Yeah, if you have money, maybe if you go to another country, will women let you? Sure, maybe they'll let you, right? Because they want to get something from you. But if you want the thing that they want to get from you to be what you got in your pants, then you can't circumvent that.

John: Right. I feel like what you kind of touched on a little bit that we've been talking about is that I feel like women have gone to the extreme over here where they're like, "I don't need a man. We don't like men." And men have gone to the extreme over here, "We don't need women. We can just go buy some or go to a different country, passport bro it up," and we don't really like women. And that has caused each other to hate each other, right? Rather than everybody realizing the good things about each other's qualities to help bring people back from these extremes. And I mean, that's why we started this podcast.

Nicole: Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do, is get people to actually understand that this extreme, this passport bros extreme, is not going to get you what you actually want. And this "I don't need a man, I don't want a man" is not going to give you what you actually want because deep down, like I said, I believe everybody wants love, whether they'll admit it or not. They want love. And so if you're going and trying to get the easy way, that's not going to happen. And if you're over here acting like, "Well, I don't really need love," you're both depriving yourself of the thing you actually want. And instead of working to bring that back to a place where more people can have it, we're getting further and further away for the people who are on these extremes.

John: Exactly. And what men don't realize is that, I was just... My new video, I'm working on the script for it, but I talked about the idea that women are adaptable. Women adapt to the man that they're with. This is a quality of women because women are responders, not initiators, right? And so, from a biological, you know, evolution perspective, like you said, women do what they need to survive. Women have a very strong survival instinct. That's why women want security. That's why they want safety. That's why they want a man that can provide. It's not because they want the money. It's because they want the security. They want the safety. Well, we don't have the physical strength that men have, so we have to have the mental strength in order to survive. So that's why women are often thinking ahead of things or thinking about, "What if this happens?" or thinking about, "Okay, well, I need a man to do this," you know, like provide or provide safety or whatever those things are. And that's why women are more selective. And that's why I don't think it's a bad thing because it's her survival.

Nicole: And what these men also don't realize that you and I have been talking about in a lot of the conversations we've been having is that if you just learned how to be more of a man and be a good man, right, you will immediately get taken off the market. For sure. Women will snatch up a good man so fast because it's so rare, right? And you can become this rare being by working on yourself.

John: Right. And I can already hear the men in the comments like, "I am a good man, and it still happened." Obviously, you're not. Obviously, there's still something that you're not doing right. And I'm not saying that you're a bad man, but you're not as good as you think you are. You're probably lacking supporting a woman emotionally or some other aspect. You might be doing a lot of good things, right, but you must be missing a core aspect that women need to feel safe in order to be with you.

Nicole: Yeah, no, I agree. It's... Everyone wants to blame everyone else, right, for their you.

John: You know, like I was saying about adaptability, right? Because guys want to blame women for, you know, like that comment. It's like, look, even if it's the case that some of these things that you say about Western women or American women are true, because women are adaptable, if not permanent, right? Like, if you find a woman, you don't have to find a woman that already has all the values that you want.

Nicole: Mhm.

John: Because, you know, women don't like it when I say it, but it is true. Women usually adapt the value systems of a strong man that they're with, just like we talked about in some of those other cultures where women are surviving, and they're obeying these guys because they're so dominant, which is not a good thing in that case. But what I'm saying is that, look, if you're a good man and you lead by example, you're going to influence a woman a lot more than she's going to influence you. I see it all the time. I see couples, and everyone can confirm this, you see couples where the woman starts doing the things that the guy does. She starts eating a lot of the foods that he eats. She starts going to the gym because he goes to the gym. Like, there's all kinds of things. She picks up his hobbies, right? That she starts doing that mirror, you know, you hear it all the time where it's like a girl's like, "Oh, I'm really into motorcycles." Like, you weren't into motorcycles before. What happened? "Oh, I'm dating this guy, and now she's into motorcycles because this guy's into motorcycles."

Nicole: Right.

John: Guys are thinking they need to go to another country and find a girl, which, good luck finding a good Christian woman who's a virgin and has these family values. And sure, maybe somewhere in Eastern Europe, maybe you're going to find that. But again, she's not going to just accept any kind of man just because you're American. But you don't need to find that. Instead, you can be the man to influence the women around you.

Nicole: Exactly, and they will, absolutely well, for the right guy. But that's the thing, and that's why I said what I said. If they just worked on themselves and really reflected and healed and worked on these things that they know women want or that they hear that women want and need in order to be in a relationship, they will influence a woman. But a woman will not be influenced by a man; she'll take over and be the man, right? Because if she meets a guy and she likes him for these other reasons, but he's not really the man that she wants, she will step in and continue to be the man because she's had to do that on her own anyway to survive. So she'll be like, "Okay, well, if he's not going to take the responsibility to be the man, someone has to, and I guess that's going to be me because I've been doing it anyway while I was single."

John: Right, exactly. Yeah, and I just remember the example that I had too, which is, I had a coaching client this week. We were talking about this, and he told me that he started dating this woman, right? And she liked to go out and party with her friends and go to nightclubs and bars and stuff, drinking with her friends. And, you know, they were dating, started to get serious, and he told her, he said, "I don't like this. I don't like you going out." And she said, "Oh, you're being controlling." And he said, "I'm not being controlling. I'm not telling you what you have to do, but you can choose to do that if you want. You can make your choice, but I'm also going to make my choice about the relationship based on your actions." And, you know, she was upset. The next day, she came back, and she was like, "I decided that I'm not going to go out and drink with my friends and go to bars and nightclubs. I don't think it's appropriate, and I appreciate you actually setting some boundaries. I don't think I had enough boundaries in my last relationship." Boom. So here you have a typical Western woman, right? That's like, "Oh, this horrible, morally decrepit Western woman." But then finally, a man comes in who's a good man and who sets some boundaries in a loving way, not in a harsh way. He didn't say, "You have to do this." And she chooses to adapt to what he said because that's what I think a lot of women want. They want that. When you create boundaries, it creates safety and security because you feel like, "Okay, there's some structure to this, and I don't have to worry."

Nicole: Right, and that is the difference. Like, women haven't met a lot of men that they feel that way about, and so they continue to steamroll, and they'll continue to steamroll until they find a man like that. And we did a whole episode on this about how you have to out-masculine a woman because the thing today is that men need to realize women are more masculine these days. They've done it with a lot of things, you know, going and having to provide for themselves, and a lot of things have really pushed them in a more masculine way. However, women want to be more feminine. They do, and they're admitting it. However, they're still not getting that opportunity because over here, these men are still not becoming more masculine men to out-masculine them, so they do not feel safe. When they get into these relationships, to be more feminine, even though they want to, so they have to continue to be more masculine. And that's where it's all getting really messed up. And I'm not saying that women can't work on things in order to be less masculine or come off less abrasive because you do need to still present your femininity, even if you are still in your masculine and have to handle stuff on your own. However, if you come across a man that you trust and you feel safe with, to give him the responsibilities, you have to do that. And like you said with your story, you know, he was a good man, and he had boundaries, and he did it in the right way. And that's the thing where men mess up because a woman is not going to feel safe, and she's going to still.

John: I feel in survival mode if you are controlling her, if you're like, "Do this or else." And that's why these women in these other countries are in survival mode, and they are like, "Okay, well, let me just get to safety," which is America, which is away from these people, away from my country.

Nicole: Right, so I could be safe, exactly. Yeah. And that, I think, men need to realize that they have the power, yeah, to get the women that they want, but they're choosing to stay over here and complain about it, which I understand. It's frustrating. They have things that are frustrating; women have things that are frustrating. But until both sides realize, "Okay, I can either sit here and whine about it, right, or I can do what I can do to be better," right, it's going to... they're just going to keep getting further and further away, right. And a lot of it is the attitude in which you view this, right. It's like, if you think about this, have you ever been ziplining? I think you did one time, yeah.

John: I have been ziplining. So, what's the first thing that you do when you get into the zipline harness when you're about to go ziplining?

Nicole: Think, "What the hell am I doing? I'm terrified of heights." But then, what, what physical action do you do as soon as you get strapped into that thing?

John: Pray? I don't know.

Nicole: Like, you tug on the rope. They tugged on it for me. You make sure it's secure, right? So, women test boundaries. MH. Again, going back to evolutionary biology, women, in order to survive, you know, in the old days, our ancestors, you know, cavemen or whatever, the best chance of survival for them was to find the strongest man they can, mhm, that has resources to provide or can procure resources, right. Okay. Now, obviously, men figured this out, and then men said, "Well, I could just pretend to be this strong guy with a lot of resources." So then, what do women have to do? Well, they have to test to make sure you're actually that guy, right. So that's why a lot of guys don't understand that it's not just Western women. Every woman will run your ass over. She will try to take charge. She will try to steer the car. She is going to, what they call, shit test you. She's...

John: Going to see how you respond. What happens if she shows up late? What happens if she flakes on you? What are you going to do, right?

Nicole: Right. And so, the test is, are you going to do it right? And a lot of guys, weak men, they'll get angry. That's not the right answer. They think that's the right answer. That's danger. "How dare you do that?" That's a red flag to a woman. That's trying to control. That's not safety. Or they'll let the woman walk over them. They won't say anything because they're afraid to lose the opportunity, right. A strong man, what he's going to do is he's going to assert some boundaries. He's not going to get peeved at it. He's, you know, and he's gonna show less interest, or he's gonna walk away if he doesn't want because he's not going to allow that to happen to himself because he has self-respect for himself. And that's when the woman's like, "Oh, I just tugged on this rope, and this rope is secure. Like, he's not going anywhere. He's not going to change himself, right, to conform to me. He's not going to suddenly surprise me with buckle under pressure." Like, if you're...

Nicole: Giving all of that over to a man, like the safety and protection and providing, right, why wouldn't you want to test it, right? Why wouldn't you want to test that? Is he going to actually crack? And that's... we've also talked about the guys who are like, "Oh, well, I would protect us in when a burglar attacked our house and came in." Yeah. And I know, right, probably half of those men who say that they would take action would not.

John: No, no, no, no. And so, and a woman can't, you know, test those things. But like you said, women have learned along the way, probably unfortunately, by not testing out a man first, that if she doesn't know that you're actually safe and you're actually going to handle the stuff, and you're actually going to protect her, yeah, this, she can't, she can't be there long term. Women actually do test those things. It's not good, but I've, I've seen it happen more than once where a woman will be out with her guy in a bar or...

Nicole: Something. She'll get into a fight with a big dude at the, and then she'll want her boyfriend to come. It's like, it's a subconscious test. It's not a good idea, no, right, because people could get hurt. But women do do that too. I'm sure you've seen where they're like, "Oh, hey, are you not going to defend? Are you not going to... This guy just insulted me. What are you going to do?" I've been in that position with an ex-boyfriend, and I was walking down the street, and this homeless person was like yelling at me and kept doing it, and he was behind me 'cause we had gotten in an argument, and I had to finally turn to the homeless guy and be like, "Leave me the fuck alone," yeah, and then kept walking. And then when we got to the car, I was like, "I know that we're in an argument right now, but you didn't do anything." And his response was, "Well, what if he had a gun?" And I was like, "So, yeah, because he might have had a gun, you're not going to say anything, but..."

Nicole: I had the balls to say something. And that's, you know, obviously, I was younger then. I didn't realize that I was actually protecting myself, you know. I was in the relationship that we're talking about where I had to run the whole relationship and be the man. But that was definitely when I started losing respect for him because I'm like, "You can't even step in." Right. I mean, I understand being afraid that something's going to happen, but if something continues to press, something, somebody has to do something. And it taught me that I was the person that was protecting the relationship and not him, yeah. And that's the thing, like, if guys understand this, then they, and if you look at, I was talking about the attitude, right. If you look at romcoms, right, what always happens? The woman is a strong, independent woman, and then she's like trying to do something, and she's struggling at it or whatever, and the guy, and she's like, "I don't need your help," or whatever, you know. And does he get insulted and get angry and be like, "You're such a feminist," you know?

Nicole: He laughs. He's like, "Oh, that, he, in his mind, he's like, he's, that's cute. Look at her trying to do this thing, big tough girl," right. That's, he might not say those words, but that's what's being portrayed. And then eventually, she gets frustrated, and she accepts his help, and he's not angry about it. And then she's learning that this guy is a strong guy that she can trust. Lead. It's, it's a way of testing. And so, a lot of these guys are complaining about Western women, and they're like, "Oh, they don't need a man, and they're acting like all this stuff," and their attitude about it is one of complaining, which is the most unattractive attitude.

John: And then they're demonizing these women and saying all these bad things, and all you have to do is laugh it off. I mean, I had been on dates before where I'd opened up a car door, and the girl's like, "Ah, you know, I don't need you to open a door," or whatever. I would just laugh and be like, "That's funny, but I'm just going to do it." I open doors. It's usually the people that are projecting that sort of energy, too, that are trying to overcompensate. They have things that they need to heal within themselves because getting angry because you opened a car door does not imply that you can't open a door yourself.

Nicole: And that's where women have gone wrong. Men are doing these nice things, and they're so wrapped up in, "I don't need you, I could do it myself," that they're now criticizing men for doing something that's actually kind. There's never been a man who opened a car door that assumed a woman couldn't open a car door.

John: Exactly. You open your car door every day to drive to your job or wherever you're going, boss babe. But they are ruining the actual good instances that they're dealing with men by doing things like that. The good men who are confident in themselves will just laugh it off. But some men who are trying to be the good men, they'll be like, "Okay, well, I'm not doing this again." They take it the wrong way. Women also shouldn't be hyper-fixating on needing to be so independent and proving it. Everyone knows that women can live on their own and survive on their own. This is not like 1955. It's not her trying to prove herself anymore. We already know; you don't have to act that way.

Nicole: Women need to know that some of the things they're doing and why men are afraid of Western women is them trying to overcompensate for feeling adequate enough on their own. You should know that you don't have to prove it to people.

John: Yeah, and like I said, as a guy, your response is just to laugh it off. Don't get insulted, don't get upset about it because it still ends up being a test. It's not a good one, just like the "Hey, my boyfriend's here; should fight him." That's also not a good test. People actually do that in real life.

Nicole: Oh yes, that's horrible.

John: Well, when you have a husband like mine, you just point to him, and people are like, "Okay, never mind." Not that I've ever done that. But guys need to know how to respond to those tests in a way that shows you're not bothered by this. If you want a woman to look up to you, you have to treat her like she looks up to you. If you're getting down in the mud with her and scrapping about stupid stuff and letting her get under your skin because whatever she has some kind of feminist view, that's fine. But you have to realize she's not going to be looking up to you. Like Han Solo and Princess Leia; he just lets her be her. He rescues her when she needs to be rescued but he's never getting insulted. He's just playing it cool. Guys don't know how to play it cool anymore. The most unattractive trait that women find in men is complaining.

Nicole: Being a whiner.

John: But that's a whole another episode. To kind of go back to the passport bros, I think that they're just trying to take the easy way out. They haven't even thought far enough ahead to realize it's not the easy way out. It's actually a way that you're more likely to get taken advantage of than even being with a Western woman. Men are so afraid of getting divorced from American women that they don't even realize that they're just as likely, if not even more, to get divorced from a foreign woman who you have no real clue what their intention was.

Nicole: I feel like, yeah.

John: And I guess their only thing that they might come back with is, "Well, what if they move to whatever country and live there?" But I don't think they'd be man enough to survive the men there. A lot of these places are dangerous places. That's why that culture has developed there. Not all of them. You could talk about Eastern Europe; there are some dangerous places in Eastern Europe. You go to Western Europe; it's going to be westernized. And also, look who is going to get played here. Do you think you're going to play these girls that they're so naive that they don't have the internet and they don't know anything? Or do you think that maybe they also have the internet, they have iPhones, and they're like scheming? When this American tourist guy comes, this passport bro, "I'm going to sleep with him right away and convince him that I'm totally into him and I'm going to get my ticket out of here." They're going to play you. You're not going to go over there and play them.

John: We're going to go over to some little village where no one has ever heard of. There's no feminism, and you're just going to go over there and meet some young innocent girl that doesn't know anything about the world. No, that's not going to happen. Instead, she's going to pretend like that's the case, but she's going to be playing you. But here's the thing too.

Nicole: Here's why they even want that. It's because they don't want to work on themselves. Again, they want the easy way out. They want a woman who doesn't know any better. Even look at the words that you just used: young, innocent, naive. Right, they want her to not know that he isn't the man that he could be and he should be. They're trying to play the game to get that. But without going too far into this, too, men think they want that. They think they want a woman who doesn't talk back a lot, and that they want a woman who does whatever he says and is very pure and naive. Until they realize that they don't really have a connection with this person, and especially if she doesn't speak English very well. What sort of actual connection and intimacy are you building? You can't. Intimacy is built off of not physical intimacy alone. The connection that you have with your partner, you will be lacking that. You will be unfulfilled with this woman, and you'll end up just living like a lot of Americans do anyway, as two roommates living separate lives under one roof. Exactly, a loveless marriage. It's going to end the same exact way.

John: Yeah, you've got to actually learn. Like, I think it's worth clarifying because you always say men need to work on themselves, and these guys think they're working on themselves because they're going to the gym. Okay, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the three sixes, as you call them. They're making money, they're reading even some personal development books. But what I think what you're talking about when you say work on yourselves is emotionally, like psychologically.

Nicole: Right, yeah. Improving your mindset, your ability to tolerate discomfort, your ability to have emotional intelligence, your EQ, so that you can communicate properly with people. You can have proper relationships. That's the kind of inner work you got to get rid of those demons, the hatred that you have in there. You got to come out. Those are things you got to work on. Going to the gym, that's great. You're making money, that's great. That's not the working on yourself, that's not the deep work.

John: Well, and don't take the easy way out. This is why men don't do that, what you just said. Because I bet they even listen to this and they're like, "That's way too much. I'm not doing that." Right, they want the easy way out. That's what the passport bros is all about. It's the easy way out. They want to just find a woman, like you said, that has all the things already. That's not going to happen. Like, you can't be somebody who needs to work on these things and expect a person that has already everything that you want.

Nicole: Right, exactly. That's not going to happen. No. So, they have to realize that being a man and being a human being in general is challenging. It's hard work. You have to do the path that's going to take you to the healing and where you need to be, rather than, "Oh, I'm going to go around here." Just like the episode that came out today. You know, it's confusing because we record certain times, but a month ago, for the guy who was talking about how he wanted women and he went and worked on themselves and he thought he was perfect and he went and got escorts. And now he's like, "Oh, but I just want a woman that's not going to nag me and all the good parts of a relationship, not the bad parts." That's totally unrealistic. Right, you have to deal with the bad parts of yourself and even the bad parts in your relationship in a mature, healthy way to grow so that you will face less resistance in your life.

John: Yeah, if you try to cut corners, you're creating more resistance in your life.

Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing. Anytime you try to cut corners, it's not going to work out. There is no shortcut. There's no way. Like, if this were just a thing, then you could, it would be, everyone would be doing it. Right. But you don't see that. Right, you hear people talking about this is what you should do, but it's a lot of talk, but it's not reality. It's not... You know, it makes me feel like men aren't as logical as they think if they just agree and adapt these concepts as their truth and perpetuate it to more and more men.

John: Well, when they're not even using their brain to be like, "Hmm, well how many people do I know that actually were a passport bro?" None. I just heard the story. Right. That's what we should do. They don't know anybody who's ever done it. Right, they're not thinking about, "Okay, well if I go to this country, this is how they live, so maybe these women are just in survival mode and maybe they would take it." Like, they're not thinking that far.

Nicole: Right, exactly. And which is not logical to me.

John: Well, it's funny because, see, men are not necessarily logical. Masculinity is a...

Nicole: That makes more sense. A lot of men are feminine. They don't even know it because they're more emotional and they let their emotions carry them.

John: Right, and take over. That's what I mean. Anytime you're spewing off in the comments, okay, I'm sorry, but you have to know that you're not reacting out of logic. Because logic says, "I don't need to respond to some random person on the internet."

Nicole: Right, emotion. Even if you've made a logical argument in your emotional comment, it's still emotional because that's what spurred you to do it. And it's okay to have moments of emotion. Like, we respond to some comments. It depends on the comments. But, and everybody has both things. Right, and again, it could be a whole another episode, but men are logical and emotional, and it's about the balance of that. And same with women. And I just think men need to realize that at times like this, like you said, they're being more emotional and they're showing women that they can't control their emotions, that they're not very emotionally intelligent.

John: Yeah, and a woman is more emotional, and if you come off more emotional as her, even as emotional, that's not safe for her.

Nicole: Right, exactly. Because she has to be the one that you protect in the moments when she is more emotional. Right, and if you're more emotional, or you're emotional all the time, or you're letting it spew out, there's no safety there.

John: Yeah, and I'm not saying men can't be emotional at all.

Nicole: No, but he has to know how to properly express those emotions.

John: Exactly. And then we talked about that, I think, last episode. And women should too. They shouldn't be like, "I hate you," you know, in the moment or anything like that either. But I'm just trying to explain why that is important.

Nicole: Exactly. Well, I think we... we don't go to a... don't get your passport and try to go find a way.

John: No, don't. You're going to get scammed. Okay, don.

John: Don't cut corners. We love you long time, and until we get to America, and then not so much anymore. It's like, no, it's not going to happen. So, oh my gosh. But you know, oh wait, what's our thing for the week? Oh, the like our, it's uh, M, right? Yeah, okay. So, stupidity on my part. Okay, not stupidity, well, a little. I mean, I should have known better, but we traveled to Virginia for your brother's wedding. Mhm. And that morning, I was busy trying to get my stuff ready and get all stuff, but you were kind of putting the stuff in the car. And so, like, you were on your own timeline, and it felt like I wasn't really helping with that. I put all the bags in the car, yeah. But I was, I had to take my shot. I had to take my pills. There's a lot of stuff, but we also had to leave at a certain time. This was also 4 in the morning. We got up. We had to leave at 4:30 to make sure we got on our flight. So, like, yeah, you were doing, I'm not saying you weren't doing anything. You were doing the things that you need to do, but also the bags were sitting there, and I'm like, do I just wait for John to do this because this is like the manly task to do, or do I do it? And it was getting later and later, and we actually left like 3 minutes later than we had planned to. So, I was like, to do this, I should have planned out a little bit more time knowing that I had more stuff to do, so that it wouldn't have been that. So, that was on me. But then, you know, when we're driving over, you were kind of being silent in the car and stuff and not really responding to me very much. And so, I was like, oh, I didn't even know. I was like, is she upset about, I don't even know what's going because I don't know what you could possibly be upset about. So then, when we got to the airport, then you had mentioned to me that you're upset because you're still kind of a little standoffish. And so, I was like, then I got insulted. I got upset because I'm like, okay, so the way that you're acting was intentional behavior as opposed to just, you know, not being aware. And then, now where I messed up big time was then I started acting the same way, I started, except probably even worse. Because then I was like, definitely worse, pretending like you didn't exist. Yeah, left me at the gate by myself because you scanned my boarding pass. So, I'm standing there trying to scan my boarding pass. You have already left me. And then she's like, who else are you? But then you had to come back. Then you were still ignoring me. But see, okay, like what we talked about this podcast, how I should have handled that situation is, if well, two things. One, and I just said this in my YouTube video, my script, it's like, it doesn't matter why. And I've said this on this podcast, why she's upset. It doesn't matter if you did anything wrong or not. Women just want to know that you acknowledge that they're upset and that you care about their feelings, not an admission of guilt, not even, you know, it could be for whatever reason. It could be for a silly reason. It doesn't matter. It could be because it's a hormonal thing. But that's where I messed up. And then the second one was like we're talking about in this podcast, is I should have just laughed it off. I should have just been like, oh, you're upset at me. I'm not like, not necessarily laughed it off, but not brought so much gravity to it. It's not a big deal. It's like, okay, so you're upset. Like, I'm not like, you know, I should have treated it like it's not a big deal. Like, you're acting this way, or not taken it personally. It's like, okay, you know, whatever, it's a big deal, you know. Instead of making it a big deal. Because like I said, with the whole thing with the, if you open up a door, and you know, and a girl's, you know, being upset about that, you don't get upset and start complaining. And like, you know, and that's kind of what I, that was more, I should have done like I said in the door example, is just been like, okay, well, you know, that's like, I, you know, not made a big deal of it because it doesn't, doesn't matter. So, well, I think it was more so what you've said in other videos too, that like, well, even in this one, that you didn't do the same thing back. Like, you like still stood in your morals and how you are. And it is typical for men to go straight to being defensive because you've mentioned it. I don't know in what, I think in the video you're making actually. Yeah, that and other, I've seen other videos where men typically go straight to taking it personally and like, oh, she's mad at me. Like, I've messed up. Like, I ruin the whole thing. Like, she doesn't think about all the other things. But like you said, women are not usually acting that way. They're not trying to bring up all the things, and they do appreciate the things. They're just trying to express their emotion in that moment. And what I even said to you, I was not like, I'm mad at you. I just said, I was hurt by what happened this morning. And you immediately got defensive. And you were like, oh, so, and instead of even like saying, oh, I'm sorry, right, you got mad at me for being more quiet, which it was also 4:00 in the morning, and I am not a morning person whatsoever. And then doubled down and instead did it worse to me than what you felt like I was doing it to you. And like, we're all human. Like, that stuff happens. I do plenty of things. And like, there was a part of me that obviously was upset. We were traveling with our daughter, and I didn't want to cause an interaction in front of her because it wasn't a huge deal. I just wanted you to know that by doing all the stuff in the morning, that it hurt my feelings. I felt like you kind of didn't care about getting there on time, which I know that you do care, but that's why it hurt me. Because I felt like I was picking up the slack to make sure everything was on time, and you were doing whatever you needed to do. But I was putting all our bags in the right, the thing. So, it was, I was trying. And I was trying to bring it up in a way that I was not attacking you. I was not saying you did anything, and it still didn't work. And then you ignored me for so long, I did start crying because I was just like overwhelmed with this. You know, I tried to express things in the right way, and then I was still being like punished, it felt like. Yeah, yeah. So, which we talked about it, obviously. And we didn't have a big fight about it. I mean, we resolved it before we got off the plane. But it just, yeah, it wasn't, you know. But it's, it's hard because, you know, as a man, like I said, you got to constantly remind yourself of these things because it's hard to, you know, our first.

John: I thought as a man, did I do something wrong? If I didn't do something wrong, then you shouldn't be upset. And it's like, but here's the thing, and I get that. And I'm not saying you're wrong about that. I think that is genuinely how men think and why it leads to stuff like this.

Nicole: But when men are emotional, they act the same exact way, but they're not met with, you know, "Oh well, you don't deserve to be wrong." I'm not saying that women, I mean, deserve to be hurt or, you know, like, this doesn't make sense, so it doesn't matter, right? Women typically still might dismiss it. I'm not saying that they're always very open to it, but since women are more emotional, they understand where you're coming from when men might say something in a way that hurt them because they understand that it doesn't always logically make sense to them, right? But men definitely trip up when they're like, "Okay, well, this doesn't make sense why she's upset, so I'm going to be defensive about it."

John: Exactly, that just makes it so much worse. And men would feel the same way if they came to a woman and was like, "Hey, I don't like you going out and partying with your friends," and she was like, "Well, logically, that doesn't make sense because I'm not doing anything wrong, so why are you upset? Like, I just went out and I drank. I didn't talk to any guys." Like, how would you feel as a man if a woman came back at you like that, you know what I mean?

Nicole: And so, I feel like a lot of women do. But yeah, but I get what you're saying. It doesn't work, right? Like, a man is still upset. So, I think men need to also think about maybe like role reversal, right? Like, if they, and 'cause men do struggle with opening up about their emotions, and we were on a podcast where we were talking about how men feel like they can't express their emotions to a woman, and a lot of times it's for different sorts of reasons. But anybody, when they express their emotion, like a hurt or sadness or something, and they're met with defensiveness, is going to just feel more and more hurt and less heard.

John: So, it's like, both, everybody needs to realize that when somebody comes to you and they're hurt, don't defend yourself, you know what I mean? Like, because it's so tempting, and it's the same thing with apologies, and we've talked about it before, is like, you want to say why or justify your actions, or not even justify your action, but to show them that you didn't mean ill intent. But no one ever wants to hear that. They just want to hear the empathy. They just want to hear that you acknowledge their feelings and that you care that they feel this way, and you don't want them to feel that way. That's all. Sometimes it does help to hear that someone didn't mean to do it, but typically, people take it too far, right? They don't just stop at like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that." They're like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I was like this yesterday, and this yesterday, and then like, it hurt me when you got upset about it because I didn't mean to do it." That takes away from the person's hurt, you know, when you turn it into, instead of like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that. It won't happen again," or whatever, like, "I'll be more mindful," it turns into, "Oh well, I didn't mean to do it, but the way you reacted hurt me," and now it's turned, now someone's supposed to care about your hurt when they were trying to address their hurt first. That's why it just ends up in a crazy cycle.

Nicole: It's just like, I tell people all the time, guys I'm coaching, is like, look, if you show up late for work, okay, because your alarm clock didn't go off, whatever, you go into work, and you tell your boss, you say, "I'm late," no, and that's it. Yeah, you don't say there was traffic, I didn't set my... All of those things diminish, make you look less respectable. If you just own and accept and not try to say why, even if it is, there was a freaking hurricane, and what if you have a great excuse, it just, it doesn't add anything to it. And it's the same thing with apologies, the same thing with when someone says that they're hurt.

John: So, but yeah, it's always something to keep on, but we're human, it happens, and nobody's perfect, including us.

Nicole: We're better than perfect.

John: Yeah, that's right. That's why we got the award.

Nicole: Yeah, best couple. So, all right, well, that's it. I mean, leave an iTunes review, okay?

John: Yeah, please. We would like to recite it. I just looked on my phone before we started the podcast, and there wasn't any new ones, so we're going to start crying at this podcast 'cause there's no read it, you. This is your chance, read it.

Nicole: Yeah, that's right. You got free advertising, I think.

John: So, all right, see you next time.

Nicole: No way.